Emily Blunt offered Mary Poppins role

News broke earlier this week that a new version of Mary Poppins, which originally starred Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, would be the next in a long list of Disney’s live action remakes. And while there is no formal confirmation just yet, Den of Geek claims an insider source involved in the film’s casting process says the casting of Emily Blunt as the lovable singing nanny is looking “really very likely”.

The new Mary Poppins is to be directed by Rob Marshall, who directed Into The Woods and Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. This would mean that Blunt and Marshall would be reuniting on the new project, were she confirmed for the leading role.

We also already know that Blunt can sing, after her performance as the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods took us all by surprise.However, whether she can pull off Andrews’s irresistible warmth is another question.

The previous favourite for the role of Mary Poppins was Blunt’s The Devil Wears Prada co-star Anne Hathaway, who starred alongside the original Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews, way back when in the days of The Princess Diaries film series.

Irish betting agency BoyleSports revealed earlier this week that Hathaway had 6/4 odds of landing the role of the magical nanny, with her popularity supported by her phenomenal singing performance in 2012’s Les Miserables as the tragic Fantine.

Emily Blunt’s participation in Mary Poppins is not certain until she accepts the offer, and we receive formal confirmation from Disney.